E in Toronto

Our son wanted his bedroom painted white before we moved in last summer (it was previously sky blue, which we all thought was too dark for that room). We contacted a few painters recommended to us. Scott responded quickly, his quote was reasonable, he had good reviews on Homestars, and was able to schedule something convenient for us on short notice. He suggested to us the three most popular shades of white and told us what kind of paint he used, which was helpful. When he arrived, my husband asked him to spend an extra half hour touching up some places where the paint had been removed during the installation of our hardwood floors. The paint job looks great. The touch-ups he did would have taken us forever to do ourselves. The only quibble we might have is that there were some paint drips on our hardwood floors in the areas he painted. However, my husband was able to remove them all easily.

Our chimney, which was not in use, had holes in it, some of which were between two rooflines. We were worried about stability and leaking. We also wanted to repair/replace some loose parging over the brick at the side of our double-brick house. We talked to about a half dozen masonry companies, with widely varying prices and widely varying ideas of what to do. Some were also hard to reach for an estimate. Red Robin was quick to provide an estimate and the guy who came seemed quite knowledgeable. We thought their solution sounded reasonable and was reasonably priced. The scheduling happened quickly and easily, the job was done and cleaned up within the proposed time frame, and it all looks good so far. Many other companies wanted to simply plug the holes in the chimney with cement, which didn't sound like a very good solution. Two companies, including Red Robin, said that was a poor and temporary fix. Both suggested taking down the chimney then partially rebuilding it prior to capping. However, Red Robin offered a more complete solution to the chimney issue and a less drastic/expensive solution for the parging for a more reasonable price.